


under the light of a thousand stars

by PeroxideBlue



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Dead Calypso, Dead Piper, Don't Judge Me, F/M, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So much angst, The Author Regrets Everything, angsty leo, angsty reyna, because i feel i'll suck, dead Jason, i mean they just survived a war, i posted this on my other account and i don't want to read it again, i wrote this back when i thought reyna was heterosexual SIKE, tbh i wrote this before BoO and i really thought they were all gonna die, they are all dead, who knows where the other survivors are, yes i like ed sheeran who doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxideBlue/pseuds/PeroxideBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Broken, that's what they are. Empty shells and fading shadows of their glorious pasts. With dead friends, with dark origins, with messed up lives. It's all they get. They'll have to look after each other, because they are now on their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under the light of a thousand stars

The faint light of the candle projects blurry shadows on the ceiling, and Leo tries to guess what they represent while lying on the floor.

Funny, how he used to do this thing when he was still a kid.

(Maybe some things never change.)

As the door creaks open, the light of the candle dies, and he’s suddenly blind.

“Leo?”

For a moment, only for a moment, he thinks everything that happened might have been a nightmare.

He smiles lightly, although there isn’t enough light for anyone to see.

“Pipes?”

(His voice is hopeful.)

Until the voice speaks again, crushing his hopes (and maybe his heart too.)

“No, Valdez. I’m not Piper.”

Her voice is as cold as ice and as sharp as steel, and he is sure that the earth will stop spinning before she changes that tone, the tone that makes her be who she is.

(A tormented girl with the weight of the world upon her shoulders.)

He sighs, and it feels as if his soul is trying to escape. “Yes, Reyna?”

“Percy is looking for you. And also Hazel.”

Her voice doesn’t waver.

“Tell them I’m tired, or something.”

And he is tired, but tired of living and fighting and giving everything without getting anything.

He is too tired to live.

He wonders if she’d understand.

(She probably doesn’t.)

* * *

_I’m sorry for your loss._

She had said that goddamned line so many times that she is sure those would be her last words.

And it would be so cruelly appropriated that she almost wants to cry.

But she doesn’t.

(Maybe she has forgotten how to do it.)

She opens the door, only to be greeted by a lying figure.

Let’s just hope they aren’t dead.

“Pipes?”

And she knows them too well, both the voice and the name, and her insides clench in pain and remorse.

She still thinks she was the reason why they died.

“No, Valdez, I’m not Piper.”

_They call her the Ice Queen._

She hears him sigh tiredly. “Yes, Reyna?”

_They think she doesn’t have a real heart._

“Percy is looking for you. And also Hazel.”

_Maybe there are steel hands wrapped around her heart, keeping it from beating._

Maybe.

“Tell them I’m tired or something.”

She feels tired too.

So she just lies next to him, both staring at the darkness and wondering about what life is.

Maybe.

* * *

She lies next to him and he closes his eyes, their breathings matching one another.

Breaths of gold leave his lips.

Sighs of silver leave hers.

Maybe this is the closest thing to peace he will ever know.

His soul is made of fire, but he’s suddenly cold. Oh, the irony. Stupid life.

“I can’t believe she died.”

His words are too harsh against the soft air, too bright against the comforting darkness.

And then—

“I know.” Her voice is paper thin before it’s gone.

She knows.

It’s okay. _It’s okay_.

“I can’t believe they all died. Jason and Piper were my best friends, you know. And Calypso… Gods, Calypso.”

And the laugh that escapes his lips isn’t happy at all.

“I know.”

Her voice sounds broken.

But it’s okay, you know.

Because they are too.

* * *

They sit together and look back at their past.

They don’t really want to —the pain is too much—.

But they still do it.

Her eyes reflect a million memories of another country, a father that was never there, a sister that left and a crown that was too heavy for her head.

Her story isn’t really a happy one.

(She felt a failure most of it, and a prisoner the other half.)

His eyes reflect the flames —and she doesn’t know if it’s because of his father or because something worse— and he doesn’t seem okay.

But she doesn’t ask.

Words hurt.

(But memories hurt too.)

She was once a queen that had the world at her feet— a kingdom, loyal subjects and something similar to a king.

But it was all taken away from her.

Electric blue eyes chase her in her nightmares.

Eyes that shift colors look at her accusingly just when she’s woken up.

Brown eyes stare right through her.

“Are you okay?”

Although they look directly at her soul sometimes.

She shakes her head. “Perfectly fine.”

Little white lies.

* * *

It comes to a point where they both realise they spend all their free time together.

He doesn’t say anything, though. It’s nice to have someone who understands.

They both have lost the people they love the most.

“Calypso died.”

His heart clenches with those words.

“Jason died too.”

Her voice is fragile—and so is her soul.

(But only during those moments.)

“And Piper. Gods, my best friends are dead.”

Stupid, stupid war.

“Jason was my only friend.”

And stupid fates.

So it comes to a point where they both enjoy each other’s company, his thumb drawing nonsensical patters on her knuckles, her breath hot against his neck.

He closes his eyes and sighs but, for the first time in what feels like forever, it isn’t a sigh of defeat.

It’s a sigh of contentment.

(Her eyelashes tickling him.)

Yeah. Life is for the living.

* * *

The sunlight is too bright to her eyes, and she closes them, enjoying the smell of the heat.

“So, welcome to Texas.”

And when she opens her eyes again, she almost wants to run away.

(Because for some strange reason, this part of Texas was too much like her first home.)

“No.”

Chocked words are spitted out, maybe as an attempt to breathe, maybe as an attempt to suffocate.

She can’t go back there.

Costa Rica doesn’t bring back pleasant memories.

But then, the boy made of fire (there is no other way to describe him but fire—moving, dancing, full of life) holds her hand and nods.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

She sighs, and her breath mixes with the dust of the desert.

Off to a new start.

(Let’s just hope this time doesn’t end up like the last one.)

* * *

His vision is blurry, and he doesn’t know if it’s due to the tears or to the heat.

It doesn’t matter, he supposes. He’s home again.

“No.”

Reyna looks more frightened than ever and suddenly, he can only see her as a piece of glass, ready to break at any instant, and so transparent that it shows everything.

She’s thinking about her old home.

So he takes her hand —as cold as her— and tries to comfort the dying queen by his side.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Because there is nothing more painful than going back to your first home.

(To your first nightmare.)

She sighs, and he leads her into the house.

The next morning, he wakes up with the soft sound of snoring next to him, only to find Reyna lying besides his body, her head resting against his chest.

“I killed my mother,” he says to no one in particular, the queen in his arms asleep.

Or maybe not.

“I made my sister ran away.”

He strokes her hair and something wet (a tear? Is he really crying?) rolls down his cheek.

But he wipes it before she notices.

Suddenly, he thinks about his mother and all he sees is pain and all he hears is her screams.

The oxygen he breathes seems to get lost before it reaches his lungs.

(But it’s always easier to breathe when remorse isn’t choking you.)

* * *

 

 She still feels blue eyes following her through her life.

(Time slips through her fingertips.)

_You let me die, Reyna. I trusted you!_

She can really picture him yelling those words at her.

But she also trusted him and she ended up with a broken heart.

Now, decide which is worse— a broken heart? Or broken time?

To her, it’s none. Broken life beats anything.

Pieces of her shattered life pass before her eyes.

She starts to breathe desperation.

Who needs oxygen to live when you can just suffer pain?

Leo holds her close, and they cry together.

(His fingertips now drawing nonsensical patterns on her back as she falls asleep.)

_Monster. You killed them._

Her mind tortures her even in her dreams.

A smiling Piper turns around and point a finger to her.

_You killed be because you were jealous!_

Jason shakes his head when he spots her.

_I really thought you were better than this, Reyna._

Hylla looking down at her and wrinkling her nose.

_What are you doing here? Just go away._

She doesn’t sleep so well at night, waking up and shivering, until Leo’s arms —when did she stop calling him Valdez?— are around her once more.

And maybe he’s not Jason and she isn’t Calypso, but it’ll have to work.

Because they are on their own.

They just have each other now.


End file.
